Cool Repentance

by Antonia Fraser

  'I see. So that was it, was it? I see. So that was it. Ketty set that one up. Ketty thought of that little plan.'

  Father O'Brien was at last free to bustle into his car and drive away -rather too fast, under the circumstances, rattling over the cattle grid on the drive. Julian watched for a moment and then turned on his heel and walked back through the front door.

  'Ketty,' he roared. 'Ketty. Come here, will you! I want to have a word with you. Ketty!'

  But Ketty did not answer. Perhaps she was still over at Stable Cottage with her sister Rose, or perhaps she was at the top of the next flight of stairs where years ago she had set up a little sewing-room to make or alter the girls' clothes, with the sound of the sewing-machine drowning that of Julian's voice. Or perhaps she was in her bedroom, along the landing, between those of Regina and Blanche, and managing to sleep through his calls. At any rate she did not answer.

  Everything was very still inside Lark Manor. The early evening air hung heavy and silent in the beautiful tidy rooms. Where was everyone? There was no sign of Regina, for example - but she had probably ridden Lancelot down to the sea. Blanche had spent the morning sobbing loudly in her room after the previous day's outburst; either she was asleep, or she had gone out - at any rate no sound came from her room. Gregory sometimes came over from his cottage in the woods at this time of day to collect his milk and have an early drink with Julian. Today there was no sign of him.

  Finally Julian Cartwright's voice too fell silent. His last words had been a raucous cry of 'Ketty'. Any chance Christabel had of enjoying a peaceful nap in the tranquillity of the manor would surely have vanished altogether at the sound of that stentorian voice. But in fact Christabel Cartwright was lying awake.

  She was awake and frightened. She wished that Boy Greville had not decided to rehearse the other scenes which did not include Madam Arkadina, in order to give Christabel a rest from her ordeal. She wished she was at the Watchtower Theatre, in her little modern dressing-room, gazing at her face in the harsh light of the electric bulbs round the mirror, dragging at the grease-paint on her face with cold cream.

  She wished she were anywhere except alone in her bedroom at Lark Manor.

  The person who had thought all along that Christabel could not just come back like that and expect to get away with it knew that she was alone. The person knew too that Christabel was frightened. The person decided that the right moment had at last come to put an end to Christabel. Extinguish her. Above all put an end to her soft pampered body, that body which had betrayed her and everybody else close to her, because it was the desires of Christabel's warm greedy body which had taken her away from Lark Manor, caused her to fly away with Barry Blagge about whom nothing good could be said except that he had thick red hair and an enormous—

  The person stopped short at the next word, because even to use it in the person's thought, such a coarse, such a rough crude physical word, aroused bad feelings in the person, feelings from the past which the person did not wish to experience again. It was better to concentrate on purely helpful thoughts of how to obliterate Christabel's body, the body which had entertained Barry - the person felt calmer now: there was no temptation to dwell on exactly how Christabel's body had entertained Barry Blagge.

  The person began to croon the old familiar litany of hate: if only Christabel’s soft skin had not betrayed her like that when she could have spent all her life so happily in the luxury of Lark Manor, with her nice husband and the nicest most convenient lover in the world in the shape of Gregory Rowan - for that's what he had been, had he not? Then there were her loving daughters, oh such loving little girls, worshipping the ground - and the stage - their mother trod on. All thrown away, thought the person, for who could pretend that Blanche and Regina would ever worship their mother again? Who could expect them to?

  Christabel's career too - all thrown away. Younger actresses had come to take her place, or actresses who were never half so good like Anna Maria Packe - that failure, the failure of her career too could be blamed on Christabel's weakness. Certainly it was quite ridiculous, the way that Christabel thought that by repenting, she could simply resume her stage career just like that. . .

  If only Christabel's body had not grown greedier with the years. If only that spoilt soft flesh could have tolerated, just once in a while, the embraces of her own husband - instead of which Christabel's treacherous body, Christabel's weak flesh, had caused her to shrink and turn and turn away, and lie passive and reluctant in her husband's arms. While all the time in the arms of Barry Blagge—

  But here the person checked the dangerous thoughts again.

  Moving very quietly in the empty house - for the person knew every board, exactly where every stair creaked, and how to listen for every door that might open, the person began to lay plans for the death of Christabel. Once Christabel had had a perfect life. She had thrown it all away. Now she should have a perfect death.

  No one would ever know that it had not been an accident, the way the person planned it. After all, the person had drowned Filly Lennox - a mistake, admittedly, and everyone had believed that to be an accident. As for Nat Fitzwilliam, who had got altogether too close to the truth about the girl's death with his prying binoculars, that rather unpleasant death was being blamed on Mr Blagge.

  The person, now in a room upstairs, quietly rummaging for something essential to the person's plan, paused for a moment to consider the whole question of Mr Blagge. He was now in police custody. If Christabel's death was made to seem like a proper accident, he might still be blamed for the murder of Nat. The police were such idiots: Jemima Shore Investigator was not quite such an idiot, but, even so, the real truth was unlikely to strike her. For one particular reason. The person smiled. The idea of fooling Jemima Shore was by no means displeasing to the person.

  So how did the person feel about Mr Blagge being blamed? It was important to decide before these preparations went much further. The house was empty now but you could not expect a house the size of Lark Manor to remain empty forever, on a late summer's afternoon. Oh, it would be terrible, the most dreadful pity, for the person's plan to kill Christabel to be ruined at the very last moment!

  On the whole therefore it was best to proceed and let Mr Blagge take his chance ... after all this time, the person had no particular feelings about Mr Blagge either way. The person merely hungered for the end of it all: the resolution of the tragedy. So the person proceeded with quiet and deadly preparations for the death of Christabel.

  Julian Cartwright, rushing from the back of the house, collided with Gregory, coming from the front. Gregory was breathing hard and looked alarmed. There was no sign of his large car in the drive.

  'It's Christabel, it sounds like Christabel,' he said. Julian said nothing, but pushed past him and started to run again, through the wide open french windows of the kitchen, towards the hall. After a moment, Gregory, his tall figure towering over Julian's, ran after him. Both men stopped at once when they got to the hall. The first person they saw was not Christabel but Ketty.

  Finely dressed as ever in a dark patterned crepe dress, and wearing her usual jangling earrings, Ketty was standing in the middle of the hall, looking up the well of the stairs. It was remarkable, in view of the formality of her frock, that she was wearing no shoes; her feet were large and well formed: the toe-nails, painted dark red, showed incongruously through the stockings. Christabel, above them, was wearing a pale-blue silk peignoir, the material so light you could see the shape of her soft ample body, her breasts, quite clearly. Her pale hair was in disarray; it looked as if she had just got out of bed. She was leaning on the balustrade. She looked both startled and frightened.

  'My darling! You screamed! Are you all right? I heard you scream,' Julian ignored Ketty and rushed on up the stairs.

  'I did scream,' said Christabel slowly; her low voice was not quite steady. She too like Gregory was breathing very fast. Julian put his arms round her. The slight involuntary check with which she met hi
s embrace was painfully noticeable to the two watching below. 'I heard a noise in the house. I thought I was alone. It was only Ketty. She gave me a fright, that's all.'

  'I'm sure it wasn't me that made any noise,' Ketty spoke in her usual grimly self-righteous voice; alone of those present she seemed quite unperturbed by Christabel's distress. 'I took my shoes off when I came back into the house from my sister's, so as not to cause a disturbance when certain people were resting.' Ketty stared defiantly, first at Gregory, then back up at Julian. Then she added in an even more emphatic voice: 'I'm sure there is nothing about me that should frighten Mrs Cartwright.'

  13

  Simply Guilty

  At the remand hearing in Beauport Magistrates' Court the police - in the shape of Detective Inspector Matthew Harwood - opposed bail for James Roy Blagge. This, coupled with the very serious nature of the offence with which he was charged, was sufficient to convince the magistrate that the accused should be kept in custody.

  'And a good thing too!' Matt Harwood commented to Jemima Shore, when Jim Blagge, neatly dressed and impassive, had been taken back to the prison at Bridchester on a seven-day remand. 'Bail-for-murderers indeed, which my little brother Gary tells me is becoming quite the fashion in London's fair city these days. Here in Bridset we think there is just one place for a man suspected of a violent crime, and that is a nice cosy prison cell. Just in case.'

  'Just in case he does it again? Or just in case he decides to do a bunk on a boat from Lar Bay?'

  'Just in case,' repeated Matt Harwood, sounding rather pompous. Then he softened. 'There are a good many things a man on a grave charge can do if he's left at liberty, you know, apart from the above. Not only tampering with witnesses. He can do away with himself, for one thing. It's been known to happen.'

  Jemima, remembering the erect silver-haired figure of Mr Bragge in the court, appreciated the policeman's point. Self-destruction must be a real possibility - if he had indeed murdered Nat Fitzwilliam as the police contended; murdered him in a fit of spontaneous and uncontrollable rage, brought on by the younger man's casual contempt on the night of the murder, his long-term insolence - or worse still insolent indifference - in the months preceding it. And all rooted in Mr Blagge's paranoid hatred of the theatre itself, of which he had made no secret since his son's departure. Such a man might well wish to put an end to an existence irredeemably wrecked by his own violent impulse.

  Mr Blagge was certainly not likely to vanish abroad - for where would he go? What would become of Mrs Blagge? His whole life was here in Larminster and up at Lark Manor, as Gregory had explained. Nor was there any possibility of Mr Blagge tampering with witnesses: the strangers who had witnessed his second visit to the theatre had already given their written statements. Anyway the case against him rested strongly on the forensic evidence.

  It was a classic case of the Locard exchange principle at work, Matt Harwood told Jemima happily: he suggested that she should let Pompey of the Yard know all about it when she was next in touch with him. 'We're not so dim in Bridset, you know, not dim at all.'

  Minute fibres of Nat's white scarf had been discovered on Mr Blagge's jacket, and Nat's own clothing had revealed similar tiny traces of Mr Blagge's dark jacket. Faced with this unassailable evidence, Mr Blagge had broken down at his second questioning and admitted to paying a second visit to the Watchtower, while the Cartwright family was still celebrating in a private room at the Royal Stag.

  When he had presented himself in the foyer of the hotel, Julian had told him to cut along, the car would not be needed for at least an hour or so. So he had been unable to resist returning to the theatre - knowing where he had deposited the key - and 'giving that young man a piece of my mind'.

  Mr Blagge even went so far as to admit that in the course of this process, he might have come close to plucking at Nat's scarf, might actually have given it a tug, especially when the young man in question waved him away, refused to speak to him, talked about Mr Blagge interrupting his precious meditations ...

  'His precious meditations!' snorted Mr Blagge, indignation once again overcoming him at the memory; with his face flushed, he looked altogether a more dangerous animal than the impeccable butler-figure he generally presented to the world; the detective questioning him noted how quickly his anger could erupt. 'As if he was in church, as if he was some kind of holy being. When he was only sitting in the theatre, wasn't he? I told him, I told young Master Nat—'

  But Mr Blagge still maintained firmly and steadfastly that he wasmot responsible for Nat's death. Had not in fact strangled him with the white scarf, despite the evidence of his handling it.

  'They often do that, murderers,' said Matt Harwood comfortably to Jemima Shore afterwards. 'Admit everything but the deed itself.'

  Mr Blagge had then added that he had been vaguely conscious of someone else outside the theatre, a man, waiting, lurking in the shadows.

  A man who would have noticed him put back the key under the stone trough, and would then have been able to enter the theatre unobserved.

  'That's the man you should go for,' Mr Blagge told the police, still truculent. 'The person who was watching me. That's the person who did for Nat Fitzwilliam, that's who. I put the key back, second time as well, and now it's missing. The murderer took it. That's who.'

  In desperation he went even further: swore that Nat himself had left the theatre again shortly after Blagge for a breath of fresh air - 'Told me I'd interrupted his thoughts! His thoughts! And what about my thoughts? What was I supposed to think when young Nat Fitzwilliam cheeked me in front of the whole of Larminster inside that restaurant? Fresh air indeed! Yes, he needed fresh air all right, I'll grant him that. And I heard him come out of the front door of the theatre too. Heard those great doors opening as I was crossing the square back to the hotel. Anybody could have used the Stage Door then. Anyone who knew where the key was. What about that man then, the other fellow?' Mr Blagge concluded truculently.

  But: 'They often say that too', Matt Harwood told lemima. 'Someone else was around at the same time, someone unknown with exactly the same opportunity, who actually committed the crime.' And he pointed out how easy it would have been for Blagge to dispose of the key somewhere where it would never be found. There were also no witnesses to confirm the presence of a third party lurking in the shrubberies, nor had anyone else seen Nat Fitzwilliam leave the theatre for a breath of air, if indeed he had.

  Jemima Shore, for her part, wished she could feel so totally convinced about the guilt of James Roy Blagge. It would have made life so much simpler. Instead, her instinct was troubling her; that famous instinct, merrily castigated by both Cy Fredericks ('Your lady's instinct, my dear Jem, always so expensive, what is it asking for this time?') and Pompey of the Yard ('My wife suffers from the feminine instinct too; you could say we both suffer from it'). But Jemima knew by experience that this instinct was not to be derided.

  The single word 'instinct', drawing the fire of such quizzical males as Cy Fredericks and Pompey, was in fact not quite accurate. It was more that Jemima possessed a very strong instinct for order. This would not let her rest so long as the smallest detail was out of place in the well-regulated pattern of her mind. On this occasion the small detail which was troubling her, and would continue to do so naggingly until she resolved it, was Christabel's distress at the televised rehearsal and her continued nervous state since Mr Blagge's arrest. Jemima had suggested rather flippantly to Matt Harwood that Mr Blagge might be being held in custody 'just in case he does it again'. But there could be no question of Mr Blagge attacking anyone while he was in the cells at Beauport. What then was frightening Christabel Cartwright?

  The best way to find that out was to ask the lady in question. Jemima would use as an excuse for a meeting the need to discuss the new shape of the programme. She found that television provided an excellent cover for investigations of a very different nature, because the victims themselves were so eager to submit themselves to interrogation; the demand
s of the medium apparently vindicated in their eyes inquisitive approaches which Jemima herself would never have tolerated from a comparative stranger.

  So Jemima invited Christabel to lunch at Flora's Kitchen. Inflamed by Cherry's descriptions of her gastronomic adventures with the Major, Jemima did for a moment flirt with the idea of roaming further afield, tasting the delights of Giovanni e Giovanna at Deep Larkin, for example, or even voyaging as far as The French Lieutenant just across the county border. In the end she rejected both plans: Giovanni's Special Bridset Spaghetti (Lar Bay mussels) and The French Lieutenant's Coupe Sarah, about both of which Cherry had waxed lyrical, would have to wait for another occasion for Jemima's seal of approval.

  There was the complication of rehearsals as the First Night of The Seagull approached (and Widow Capet was billed to open the following week). More than that, Jemima wanted Christabel to be exceptionally relaxed and confidential at this particular meal. Such an insecure woman - Jemima was increasingly inclined to take Gregory's estimate seriously -would be at her least guarded on familiar Larminster ground. Elsewhere, she might be tempted to give a performance, as it were, to Giovanni if not to Jemima Shore.

  But as she faced Christabel across the Botticelli-printed tablecloth at Flora's Kitchen, Jemima did not find her noticeably relaxed. She could not help contrasting this jumpy nervous woman with the confident charming Christabel who had first introduced her to the restaurant. Her clothes were still perfectly chosen in their feminine way; full skirt of a very pale pink, echoed by the deeper pink rose on her jacket lapel, cream-coloured silk blouse tied in a floppy bow at the neck, and pearls. The great aquamarine ring still flashed on her finger, as though to remind anyone in danger of forgetting that Christabel's unblinking eyes were the same translucent tropical-sea colour. So was her eyeshadow, for that matter, and one noticed that fact too.